Prior to 1881 the Monument area was inhabited only by Ute Indians, but it was visited from time to time by a few fur trappers, explorers, and geologists. In 1776 an expedition led by Fathers Dominguez and Escalante passed northward across Grand Mesa, the high plateau just east of the area, which is pointed out in many of the photographs. A trading post was built by Joseph Roubidoux about 1838 just above the present site of Grand Junction. In 1853 Captain John W. Gunnison, seeking a new route for a transcontinental railroad, led an exploring party down what is now the Gunnison River Valley, past the confluence with the Grand River (now called the Colorado, p. 16), and on down the valley. Geologists and topographers of the Hayden Survey found only Ute Indians in the area in 1875 and 1876, and their field season of 1875 was abruptly cut short because of skirmishes with hostile Utes. After the Meeker (Colorado) Massacre of 1879, believed by many to have been caused mainly by the ignorance and shortsightedness of Meeker himself, treaties were signed forcing the Utes out of western Colorado onto reservations in eastern Utah, and the last of the Utes was reportedly out of the area by September 1881. The Grand Valley was immediately opened to settlement, and the first ranch was staked out on September 7, 1881. Nineteen days later George A. Crawford founded Grand Junction as a townsite and formed the Grand Junction Town Company the next month. The success of the new town was assured on November 21, 1882, when the narrow-gage line of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad (now Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad) reached it via the Gunnison River valley. The town of Fruita was founded by William E. Pabor in 1883 and incorporated the following year. The Brown-Stanton River Expedition[14]